No factionalism in BJP, asserts Vajpayee
New Delhi, September 25
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today held the media responsible
for “cooked up” reports about factionalism in the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying these were “baseless”.

Laloo enters tinsel world
Patna, September 25
RJD chieftain Laloo Prasad Yadav, probably the most mimicked politician ever, today made his first appearance in the tinsel world acting as himself in a Mahesh Manjrekar film named after him “Padamshree Laloo Prasad Yadav”.

Laloo Prasad Yadav being told about the storyline of the scene in the film ‘Padmashree Lalu Prasad Yadav’ by Director Mahesh Manjrekar (right) in Patna on Saturday. Bollywood comedian Johny Lever is also in the picture.
— PTI photo

Dawood’s brother bows out of poll race
Mumbai, September 25
Iqbal Kaskar, brother of alleged gangster Dawood Ibrahim, has withdrawn from the electoral fray at the Umarkhadi Assembly constituency in Mumbai. Maharashtra goes to the polls on October 13 and Saturday was the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

CPM to contest 16 seats in Maharashtra
New Delhi, September 25
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today said that it had decided to contest 16 seats, including Jawhar and Surgana, where it had sitting members.

Somnath to lead team to Geneva
New Delhi, September 25
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee will lead a 10-member Parliamentary delegation to participate in the 111th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Geneva next week where the role of Parliaments in strengthening multilateral regimes for disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons will be discussed.

Focus on latest techniques, say farm experts
New Delhi, September 25
India and other Asia Pacific
countries should focus on modern techniques, including remote sensing for gathering and processing agricultural data as precise data is an invaluable input for taking informal economic decisions, according to experts.

‘Woman of letters’ enters Guinness Book
New Delhi, September 25
Delhi-based Madhu Agarwal (53) has created a new record and entered the prestigious Guinness Book of World Records for having the maximum number of letters to the editor published in one calendar year.

6 missionaries hurt in mob attack
Kozhikode, September 25
Six members of the “Missionaries of Charity,” including four nuns and a Kenyan national, sustained injuries in an attack by unidentified assailants at Mampuzhakatt Colony in Olavanna Panchayat in this district of Kerala today.

Indian aid for Jamaica, Grenada
New Delhi, September 25
The Indian Government has decided to give relief assistance of $ 2 lakh to Jamaica and $ 50,000 to Grenada in the wake of the havoc caused in these countries by hurricane ‘Ivan’, the Ministry of External Affairs announced here yesterday.

The
Indian
Air Force IL-78 refuelling plane squadron valorous mars pose for
a photograph in front of the aircraft, after an exercise at the Agra
Air Force Station on Friday. — PTI

Bollywood star and Member of Parliament Dharmendra unveils the new range of HelpAge India greeting cards in the Capital on Saturday.
— Tribune photo by Mukesh Aggarwal

New Delhi, September 25
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today held the media responsible
for “cooked up” reports about factionalism in the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying these were “baseless”.

Addressing mediapersons at the party headquarters on the birth anniversary of Deen Dayal Upadhayay, Mr Vajpayee said it was baseless to talk about factionalism on the basis that the party had taken three programmes — the Tiranga Yatra of Ms Uma Bharti, MPs led by Ms Sushma Swaraj courting arrest over the removal of Vir Savarkar’s plaque at Port Blair and Deen Dayal Upadhayay birth anniversary celebrations.

He said in fact, it was good that the party had taken up three programmes simultaneously. Each has its own significance which reflected the party’s outlook on various issues. One should not differentiate which programme was bigger. “One should not think this programme is bigger and others are insignificant,” he said.

The programmes were organised to project the party’s ideology and stand on issues and its future strategy, he said.

Expressing anguish over reports of “dissatisfaction” among the second-rung leaders in the party, Mr Vajpayee said he knew how reports were “cooked up and published.”

Mr Vajpayee, who paid his respects to Deen Dayal Upadhayay, described him as a simple man and a great thinker.

Mr Vajpayee said there was no need to give much credence to the media reports about growing differences in the party, saying their job was just to read these reports and keep it in memory. He asked partymen not to get disturbed by such reports.

“Some reports have been published, but these are not correct,” he said.

Mr Vajpayee, however, expressed displeasure over the tendency among political leaders to speak “off the cuff”. He said in politics, one should speak after giving due thought.

On the Veer Savarkar issue, he said he could speak for hours on the contribution made by the great freedom fighter. He had not only met him but had had arguments with him on many issues.

He said the BJP’s objective was to make India the most developed nation and the partymen should be cautious and alert to face various challenges.

Party President M. Venkaiah Naidu, without referring to any controversy over the party’s programmes, said Mr Vajpayee had given his blessings to Ms Uma Bharti’s “Tiranga Yatra” and Mr L.K. Advani had flagged it off.

Criticising the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, he said this government was targeting nationalist forces and it was the biggest challenge before them. He said both the “Tiranga Yatra” and “Andaman Satyagrah” were mass awareness programmes.

Patna, September 25
RJD chieftain Laloo Prasad Yadav, probably the most mimicked politician ever, today made his first appearance in the tinsel world acting as himself in a Mahesh Manjrekar film named after him “Padamshree Laloo Prasad Yadav”.

Laloo, whose mannerisms have inspired many Bollywood character, makes a guest appearance in the Rs 5-crore-film to be released next month which, according to Manjrekar, has no element of similarity with Bihar strongman’s political or personal life.

While up and coming starlet Mausumi Makhija plays a character called Padamshree, Suneil Shetty stars as another called Laloo, Manjrekar is a character named Prasad and ace comedian Johnny Lever plays the role of Yadav.

Laloo’s Chief Minister wife Rabri Devi’s official residence at one, Anne Marg, was swarming with the Mumbai film industry’s artistes and technicians with tonnes of equipment and entry to the local media was barred for over five hours before they were allowed into the most famous address in the state for a glimpse of the happenings.

The Railway Minister, who has a small role on the film, reclining on a sofa, sprang to his feet brandishing a ‘lathi’ (baton) and rebuked three characters — Mahesh, Makhija and Lever — for having brought a bad name to him by creating some ruckus in South Africa.

“Tumhi log South Africa mein ja kar udham machaya tha mera naam le kar (you are the people who created ruckus in South Africa by misusing my name).... aisa kam nahin karo nahin to ham lathi se marenge (don’t do such things otherwise I will hit you with lathi),” said Lalu as two of his lathi-weilding bodyguards stood by his side.

After the brief shot was over, Manjrekar and Lever told reporters that Laloo Prasad was a fine actor and he can any day become a great bollywood star.

However, the man whose histrionic abilities were being so profusely extolled left the venue immediately after the shot for some political function without answering the queries of reporters about his experience as an actor.
— PTI

Mumbai, September 25
Iqbal Kaskar, brother of alleged gangster Dawood Ibrahim, has withdrawn from the electoral fray at the Umarkhadi Assembly constituency in Mumbai. Maharashtra goes to the polls on October 13 and Saturday was the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

Kaskar’s lawyer Sultan Khan told reporters here shortly after the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations that Kaskar had withdrawn from the poll fray.

However, sources here say, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition ruling Maharashtra had put pressure on Kaskar through his relatives to withdraw from the race. He, however, did not give any reasons for Kaskar’s decision.

The state government had planned to use law enforcement agencies to crack down on polling staff and election agents working for Kaskar. Such a move would have badly exposed the Dawood gang’s network in the Muslim-dominated areas of South Mumbai, according to the police. The alleged gangster, who was deported from the UAE earlier this year, had obtained a favourable order from the Bombay High Court to contest the election.

New Delhi, September 25
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today said that it had decided to contest 16 seats, including Jawhar and Surgana, where it had sitting members.

The party fell out with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance after it was allotted four seats, contrary to its demand for a greater share.

The party clarified that it was contesting the Solapur South seat, which it had always contested and not the one being contested by Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.

“This is not the seat contested by Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde as reported in a section of the media. Mr Shinde is contesting the Solapur Taluka South seat,” the party said in a statement.

The party had expressed the need for a joint front to minimise the split in secular votes. With the Left going alone like the BSP and the SP, the split in secular votes could favour the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in the October 13 poll.

New Delhi, September 25
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee will lead a 10-member Parliamentary delegation to participate in the 111th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Geneva next week where the role of Parliaments in strengthening multilateral regimes for disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons will be discussed.

The Indian delegation includes Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri and five MPs, besides the Secretaries-General of the two Houses of Parliament. The session will be held from September 28 to October 1.

The assembly will also discuss the role of Parliaments in preserving biodiversity and the evaluation of the advancement of women 10 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, organised by the United Nations in Beijing in 1995.

Besides, the assembly will also include an emergency supplementary item in its agenda and devote a half-day panel discussion on “Respect for International Humanitarian Law” in which Presiding Officers of National Parliaments and other members will take part.

The IPU is an organisation of 138-member Parliaments. The participants to the assembly mainly include the Speakers of Parliaments, ministers and senior parliamentarians.

countries should focus on modern techniques, including remote sensing for gathering and processing agricultural data as precise data is an invaluable input for taking informal economic decisions, according to experts.

An official press note said experts from various Asia Pacific countries deliberated on coordinated use of available tools in the region during the five-day Conference of Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS), which concluded here yesterday.

The discussions during the conference focused on diverse facets of agriculture, including crop production, livestock, forestry and fishing in the member countries.

The subjects on the agenda included application of remote sensing in the forecast of crop area and production, forestry and fisheries, use of trade flow data in agriculture policy formulation. The development of Country STAT as a vehicle for organising national agriculture sector data, strengthening regional data exchange system in food and agricultural statistics in Asia and Pacific countries, were another issues which were discussed.

New Delhi, September 25
Delhi-based Madhu Agarwal (53) has created a new record and entered the prestigious Guinness Book of World Records for having the maximum number of letters to the editor published in one calendar year.

Madhu received the intimation about her entry into the Guinness Book in the category of maximum number of letters to the editor published in different newspapers in a calendar year, in this case 2003, through a letter on September 10, which she received today.

Incidentally, her husband Subash Chandra Agarwal also has to his credit a Guinness record for having maximum letters published in newspapers in a lifetime. He achieved the feat in December, 2002, for letters he had been writing since 1967.

In this period, as many as 1,226 written by Subhash were published in various newspapers. An updated certificate in October, 2003, pegged the number at 1988. Out of these, 19 letters were also published in The Tribune.

As many as 334 letters written by Madhu were published in 23 prominent Indian newspapers during 2003 won her the prestigious record. Out of these three letters were published in The Tribune during this period. She has to her credit 15 letters in The Tribune till date.

She told The Tribune today that she started writing to editors after she got married in 1975 and gave the entire credit to her husband, who, she said inspired her to take up writing in newspapers for public cause.

Madhu, who also keeps writing to English newspapers in foreign countries, including the UK and Pakistan, said her writings were inspired by veteran social activists, intellectuals and editors of prominent newspapers.

She said she and her husband followed the practice of writing one letter every day and sending an e-mail to different publications and their range of topics included the national and public interest areas.

Kozhikode, September 25
Six members of the “Missionaries of Charity,” including four nuns and a Kenyan national, sustained injuries in an attack by unidentified assailants at Mampuzhakatt Colony in Olavanna Panchayat in this district of Kerala today.

The injured charity workers, attached to “Sneha Bhavan,” were admitted to a private
hospital where the condition of one person was stated to be serious.

The incident took place when two nuns, who went to the Dalit colony around 11 am for distributing food materials, were allegedly attacked by a six-member gang, the police said, adding that the nuns immediately reported the incident to the Nallalam police station.

Hearing about the incident, six members of the Bhavan, who reached the spot, were also attacked by a 40-member strong mob. The miscreants managed to escape from the scene after damaging their ambulance, the police said.

Meanwhile, the injured, including the Kenyan national identified as Bernard, who came here only yesterday, told reporters that they heard the attackers shouting pro-BJP RSS slogans.

No arrest had been made so far in
connection with the incident, the police added.
— UNI

New Delhi, September 25
The Indian Government has decided to give relief assistance of $ 2 lakh to Jamaica and $ 50,000 to Grenada in the wake of the havoc caused in these countries by hurricane ‘Ivan’, the Ministry of External Affairs announced here yesterday.

Jamaica, which has a total population of 2.7 million, has about 60,000 persons of Indian
origin. Grenada has a population of 89,000, of which 300 are of Indian origin.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already sent messages of sympathies to the Prime Ministers of these countries.

BRIEFLY

Laloo assures
journalists
Patna: RJD President and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav has said he will take up with the Union Labour Ministry the issue relating to the constitution of a new wage board for journalists and non-journalists. “I will take up with the Labour Ministry the matter for the constitution of the wage board,” Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav told a delegation of the Federation of PTI Employees’ Unions.
— PTI

Ajwani arrested
Mumbai: Central Excise Commissioner P K Ajwani was arrested by the CBI on Saturday in connection with the disproportionate assets case against him. The CBI opened a bank locker of Ajwani in a South Mumbai bank and seized unaccounted jewellery worth nearly Rs 25 lakh, even as an operation is on to open some more lockers owned by him in some banks in South Mumbai.
— PTI

1 dies in Goa skybus mishap
PANAJI: A young mechanic was killed and five were injured, three of them seriously, when they fell from the skybus during a trial run near Margao railway station in South Goa on Sunday. The mishap occurred when the driver applied brakes while negotiating a curve as it hit a ramp. In the process, the mechanic, Babu (25), fell down along with the severed door of the module. The injured were rushed to a government hospital.
— UNI

100 students taken ill
LUCKNOW: As many as 100 students of an engineering college in Ghaziabad district were taken ill after consuming poisonous food. The police here said the students had been admitted to hospital. Preliminary investigations revealed that the students fell ill after eating ‘kheer’ served to them in their hostel during dinner on Friday night.
— UNI